forgiveness is stupid

 As I write this from my living room, seated on the sectional sofa my boys inherited from their grandmother (his mother, not mine). Behind me are the paintings from our old house and within me is this aching to be in my new life, both feet in. Instead, I am, it seems, with one foot in the new hoping for something different and bright, one in the old hoping I don’t stay behind out of habit or bring anything but wisdom with me forward. The objects around me reflect this (deep sigh) Change is constant, I wonder why we never get used to it… Like a rubber band we can snap right back to where we were and swore, we would never be again.

I watch through my big front windows airplanes in the distance with the fluffy clouds acting as contrast to the dark birds readying for rest and the bats coming out to play. I will miss my old life - not the married life, but the single mother making it on her own, full of ideas and dreams of sovereignty. I will miss everything I came to love about myself by spending time alone. Like perseverance, tenacity and strength all which helped me travel alone and figure out creative sources of income and pleasure. I also gave myself the chance to just be, with all of my perceived flaws and mistakes, daring to exist without apology or excuses as I have felt like it. I dared to choose a life led by the divine which means obeying the current and flow that may not and almost never does, go my way. I will miss my delusion. I will miss my hopes and dreams because I know now that it takes time and action to make them real. I already received the gift of learning that all rivers lead to the same ocean so here we go, get ready to sink or swim!

My practice in courage gives me the audacity to leave things broken and move on. I dare to not fix anything, not even hurt feelings, or carry other people's burdens or co-depend on misery and mistakes from the past.  I dare to accept everything as it is choose in favor of myself over and over again. I now know myself to have behaved in self-sacrificing ways which is a recipe for hating yourself and giving others permission to pick you apart. Thank God, it’s behind me and as I have dared to teach over the years we can always start over again. 

For those who are signed up to receive my monthly newsletter #firstfridays you might remember me saying that to hold my shadow and my light as luxury and success is my luxury and success. The generous gift of awareness. In this challenging new era I do not change for anyone or self help or personally develop any parts of  me anymore. Instead I give myself to that benevolent current that steers my life. I give up control (i try) and at the same time naturally come to some understanding that an apartment full of self help books can be a recipe for self-loathing without the appropriate perspective. I am already good enough, smart enough, generous enough.  I bet you are too and I choose to forget before I forgive because sometimes forgiveness is stupid. I also dare you to liberate your overthinking about the things that are out of your hands anyway.

Everyone wants forgiveness, we all hope to be exalted, held high… sometimes those who love us wish to open our hearts and help us forgive. Like my mother, she brings my 97 year old grandmother to my front yard because two years ago I buried some seeds and now unexpectedly there are heirloom pumpkins sprawling. The beautiful yellow blossoms appear like proof that life will have its way with us and not the other way around- seemingly out of nowhere but not so totally random either. Just like the pumpkins and the mothers who know their hate has hurt me, when you least expect it and only sometimes the prayers we make are answered. 

It’s not that I prayed for them to look for me. In fact, I hoped to be left alone. I prayed for the courage to be fully alive and integrated in my courage and self-respect that I wouldn’t limit my happiness whether they did or not.  I was watching this movie about an older divorcee needing help raising her son when I hear my mothers voice through the open windows. I also hear my grandmother's voice which actually always sounds like a man at first, along with cruelty it's her undeniable trait. At first I thought, maybe it’s a landscaper or a contractor. But then it hits me and I mumble to myself, ‘this bitch’… because she knows I don’t want to see her. She knows what she said about me and she knows she turned me away with her witchcraft and ignorance, she knew it was cruel, she did it anyway. I really just want peace from the gossip and drama but she is 97 after all and her wants and whims are granted even more so than when she demanded. My mother can’t help it and I see her heavy heart trying to float, thinking some pumpkins hold the key, knowing in fact that they do.

Now that I no longer take food, religion or advice from anyone who puts me down, the only way to see me is to come to me, if you dare. They came thinking I wouldn’t be home, for the blossoms she came but with my windows open and their loud voices streaming in I was nudged. I went downstairs to let my presence be known and out front in the misty rain asked for her blessing. Bendicion, abuela…She gave it… Dios te bendiga y te libre de todo lo malo. She told me I would get catarro for being barefoot and wet. Her way of not ever saying sorry and I accept. I held her familiar face in a loving gaze, now sunken and wrinkled with age, her frail body and quivering voice and felt my mothers’ and my own heart free. It was good to see her, I admit. I only kissed my mother, I think she gets it. There is no hate or even rejection for my mother’s mother, it’s just that we all have the right to live as we choose, and I respect her choice.

I can’t remember what happened to me, but I think I was very little and ever since I wanted so much for someone to be on my side, to defend me. I never really feel that they were, it’s the chip on my shoulder, one of my deep wounds… I know the blessed mother did this work and because I see her on my neighborhood walks in gardens and front lawns as the blessed mother, the miraculous mother, as the intangible sign that this faith needs love, I know she is with me. We can do for ourselves what we feel no one ever did for us. This is her message. Even when we are hurting, we are living. That’s the gift of growing up and it’s important not to stay in our child like feelings while never losing child like wonder. Tricky but thats what the blessed mother offers. When I have forgotten myself, she appears and this day I felt her ask me to just let it happen, to be in the current of goodness, to remember that it is much easier to forget than it is to forgive. So I took the healing as sneakily as it came. It actually felt good to just say hello and remember my promise. I won’t hate myself any longer.

I’ll be 44 next month and it feels like that’s enough for now. The work is to be happy with who I am. To integrate and live the luxury and success of just being me. When we call back the fragmented parts of self by surrendering self loathing and stop trying to be better, do better, we gain access to our whole selves just as we are. When we physically and energetically pull away from people, places and things that don’t work we also make space for so much to change. It feels right to defend myself without words, to fight by disappearing, to dare to belong to myself and God.

The pumpkins are sprawling from a spot I have already seen as a Marian statue, like guidance and divination.

https://www.amazon.com/author/sweetsister.love